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Moralist Quotes

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Moralist Quotes

“Those moralists, on the other hand, who, following in the footsteps of Socrates, offer the individual a morality of self-control and temperance as a means to his own advantage, as his personal key to happiness, are the exceptions.”

MeanSelfHandsIndividualKeysMoralityOffersAdvantageFollowingExceptionSelf ControlFootstepsTemperanceMoralistKey To Happiness
Book:Nietzsche: 'On the Genealogy of Morality' and Other Writings Student Edition
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“Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.”

IfsWayLifeTimeNextForgivenessTasksAccountsGuiltCleanBest WayAddressesRepentanceSentimentsRollingNext TimeRepentRemorseBroodingWrongdoingMoralistUndesirableAmendsBrave New WorldNot GuiltyBrave New World HappinessBrave New World FreedomFeeling GuiltyMaking Amends
Book:The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world
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“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

MayEndsSometimesWisdomGovernmentWould BePoliticalPoliticsReligiousFreedomSleepLibertyMoralConscienceVictimLibertarianTyrannyCrueltyOppressionTyrantsApprovalIntoleranceTormentTheologianSincerelyGood WillGoverningFanaticsFanaticismFreedom And LibertyGood IntentionsExtremistFreedom LibertyProperty RightsLimited GovernmentDemocracies HaveRobbersSelf RighteousOmnipotentLimiting GovernmentLibertarian PartyEconomic FreedomMoralistLimited FreedomAmerica FreedomBusybodiesGood MoralGovernment And PoliticsGovernment PoliticsGovernment TyrannyMoralizingSecurity And FreedomMoralismRobber BaronOppressive GovernmentsHonest Government
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist. . . . He plans to be both an artist and a moralist -- a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community -- that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success.”

IfsKnowsIdeasEndsArtistSoundCommunityLevelsCareersPlansMastersGoes OnHigherLovelyJournalistAspirationDepressingMerchantsHigher LevelMoralistJackassesMost Depressing
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us an answer to this question?”

GivingDoeWarMatterMightSpiritualFormPurposeEvilAnswersResultsMaterialsConsequenceExceedTotal WarHiroshimaMoralistCrux
Book:Hiroshima [Illustrated Edition]
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“What moralists describe as the mysteries of the human heart are solely the deceiving thoughts, the spontaneous impulses of self-regard. The sudden changes in character, about which so much has been said, are instinctive calculations for the furtherance of our own pleasures. Seeing himself now in his fine clothes, his new gloves and shoes, Eugène de Rastignac forgot his noble resolve. Youth, when it swerves toward wrong, dares not look in the mirror of conscience; maturity has already seen itself there. That is the whole difference between the two phases of life.”

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Author:Honore de Balzac
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“Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.”

MenLittlesDoneCharacterWould BePastJoyCertainValuesNamesCausesSinMistakeTaughtConscienceActiveMotiveEthicalOur FutureWarningOur PastFormationLoathingTaught UsEfficacyMoralistEthical Values
Book:The Penny Dreadfuls: Tales of Horror: Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Picture of Dorian Gray
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“It seems to me that the moralist is the most useless and contemptible of creatures. He is useless in that he would expend his energies upon making judgments rather than upon gaining knowledge, for the reason that judgment is easy and knowledge is difficult. He is contemptible in that his judgments reflect a vision of himself which in his ignorance and pride he would impose upon the world. I implore you, do not become a moralist; you will destroy your art and your mind.”

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Author:John Edward Williams
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“I shall not fear to say that the doctrine of self-interest rightly understood seems to me of all the philosophic theories the most appropriate to the needs of men in our time, and that I see in it the most powerful guarantee against themselves that remains to them. The minds of the moralists of our day ought to turn, therefore, principally toward it. Even should they judge it imperfect, they would still have to adopt it as necessary.”

MenNeedsShouldMindStillsSelfSeemsTurnsInterestPowerfulHuman NatureJudgingTheoryOughtUnderstoodRemainsDoctrineOur TimeGuaranteesAppropriateMost PowerfulImperfectSelf InterestPhilosophicMoralist
Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
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“To the scientist Nature is a storehouse of facts, laws, processes; to the artist she is a storehouse of pictures; to the poet she is a storehouse of images, fancies, a source of inspiration; to the moralist she is a storehouse of precepts and parables; to all she may be a source of knowledge and joy.”

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Book:The Art of Seeing Things: Essays
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“The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the good is. The problem of sanctions is secondary.”

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Book:The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy
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“In spite of what moralists say, the, animals are scarcely less wicked or less unhappy than we are ourselves. The arrogance of the strong, the servility of the weak, low rapacity, ephemeral pleasure purchased by great effort, death preceded by long suffering, all belong to the animals as they do to men.”

MenLongScienceDeathSufferingStrongPleasureAnimalEffortLowsWeakUnhappyArroganceWickedSpiteEphemeralMoralistGreat EffortLong SufferingServility
Author:Georges Cuvier
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“There is scarce any passion so heartily decried by moralists and satirists, as AMBITION; and yet, methinks, ambition is not a vice but in a vicious mind: in a virtuous mind it is a virtue, and will be found to take its color from the character in which it is mixed. Ambition is a desire of superiority; and a man may become superior, either by making others less or himself greater.”

MenMindMayCharacterDesirePassionFoundVirtueGreaterColorAmbitionVicesSuperiorsVirtuousSuperiorityViciousScarceSatiristMoralist
Author:Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke
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“Leave those vain moralists, my friend, and return to the depth of your soul: that is where you will always rediscover the source of the sacred fire which so often inflamed us with love of the sublime virtues; that is where you will see the eternal image of true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a holy enthusiasm.”

SoulVirtueFireInspireSourceReturnHolyEternalMy FriendsSacredDepthEnthusiasmYour SoulVainContemplationSublimeTrue BeautyMoralistSacred Fire
Author:Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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“Compared with that of Taoists and Far Eastern Buddhists, the Christian attitude toward Nature has been curiously insensitive and often downright domineering and violent. Taking their cue from an unfortunate remark in Genesis, Catholic moralists have regarded animals as mere things which men do right to regard for their own ends. . . .”

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Author:Aldous Huxley
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